Why is it that?

Question

Why do people feel the need to blame God for all the wrong things in their lives? Why do people say "How can God be real when there is so much evil in the world?"

God created us with FREE WILL. WE do horrible things to each other, not God. The devil tempts us with things, and we cave it. God had NOTHING to do with it.

Answer 1

I answered a question similar to this: The question was talking about if God was so loving, kind...etc., etc., why did He destroy New Orleans and kill all of those people.

I am a history buff. I love to study history, especially research into "the whys" of things. There is no doubt that God allowed Katrina to hit the Gulf Coast, but it all goes back to the basics.
When people FIRST inhabited that area, they by necessity built close to the water, to make watering crops, animals, themselves...etc. etc. easier and less time consuming, but that area has a LONG history of "bad raging storms" & flooding. Once man learned more about weather, elevations, irrigation, wells, etc., etc., sensible settlement fathers learned to build their homes on the highest ground & left the lowlands by the rivers for piers/docks...not businesses and certainly not homes and churches because of the weather dangers.

But then came along the wars and the rivers & oceans became a major source of transportation, entertainment, and profit, so regardless what the townspeople said and warned people came in and built on the lowlands and near the rivers, and oceans. And it has not changed much since. Money and greed insured that those areas were rebuilt. And local, state, and federal tax dollars & insurance premium payments insure that people will rebuild. Just as they do on the Florida coasts, and the coasts of California. So WHO is REALLY to blame? God or man's greed?

Another: California suffers destructive wild fires almost year round. If they were to clear deadfall and underbrush on a regular basis from the forests and preserves Californians would not lose so much land to wildfires, but tree huggers and green peace screech about ecology...nature...yada yada...so California bows to their screeching and people and animals and forests are destroyed every year instead of being spared by preventative measures. Who's to blame? God or man?

Another: One of the richest potential oilfields are in Texas and Alaska, but the ecology Koom-by-yahs would rather Americans lose jobs, import oil, & average hard-working American pay 4+ dollars for a gallon of gas, then to even consider upsetting the deer in Alaska with drilling or a pipeline that would negate America's need and dependence on foreign oil. And all this time, these tree-huggers live in asphalt metro areas where grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers are decorations not natural & necessary to living. And they conveniently forget that plants, trees, and grass inhale monoxide and exhale clean air.

In West Texas near by grandparents home there is several thousand areas the EPA and Green Peace has championed and put on their protected list. These several thousand acres are rich in oil, but in the middle of these several thousand acres, several 100 feet under the ground is an almost extinct beetle. You heard me a beetle and we can not go near that acreage because we might "upset or disturb" the beetle and cause him/her to die.

Now people in that area are suffering major unemployment downturn across the board, that could be solved with drilling & the businesses that would be brought in and employ people needed to handle it on "some" of those several thousand acres. So who is to blame for this?

Famines in Dafur & Somalia & India & Africa are not near as bad as they were in Old Testament times. American technology and the hard-working farmers in this country can and do feed the world. But what HAS changed is the mindset of rulers and people in some foreign governments. Food & Health aid sent by our government and other democratic governments must NOW go through government channels and food sent to the poor, the needy, the sick & the starving are now either resold for cash, used by the government and those who support the government, or are left in warehouses to rot as punishment to the people or the hope that they all die and save the government the trouble. In the last 30 years, churches and church-based organizations have found loopholes and doors other than in the governments there to see to it that the people are fed, wells are drilled, shelters are erected, and the people taught how to grow food in their desert climes to support themselves. Most all Christian & church-based organizations have doctors worldwide who give several weeks out of the year of their time and fly all over the world to give medicine, perform surgeries, correct cleft palates, crossed eyes, deformed hearts, hands, and feet...treat illnesses, whatever is needed for free. But there are still those innocent who are starving, abused, and mistreated on a daily basis simply because they are weak and defenseless. Who is to blame for this?

As Winston Churchhill once said something to the effect, "In times of the horrendous and devestating in this life, man is offered by The Divine a chance to rise to the mountaintops of the heart and soul of His Creator or to lie down and die or wallow in mediocrity."

I think Churchhill has it right.

Answer 2

Why not blaming God?
If God is perfect why did he need to create this Universe?
Is a game or what?
If a bunch of kids are dying from starvation in Somalia or a tsunami hits a beach and drowns all the tourist is FREE WILL?

Answer 3

People usually blame God out of a lack of understanding of Him and a lack of faith. Mature Christians dont blame God.

Answer 4

Because people in our current society do not like to take the rap for their own mistakes and misdealings. People don't like to feel like they were in the wrong and were incorrect.

But, did god not create the devil? And if the devil rules over evil, and god created the devil, essentially god did create evil and allowed it to persist.

Answer 5

Let me use an analogy that's upsetting to even think about. Supposing you were a kid and your stepfather was physically abusing you. If you asked your mother why she didn't stop it and she said "I couldn't interfere with his free will" would you be satisfied? Or would you wonder why if she loved you and had the power to stop the abuse she didn't stop it?
I don't blame god for anything, I don't think there is a god. But if there is, he could stop every abuser everywhere if he really loved the kids. I can't imagine a mind that could live with itself justified only by that "well, I gave them free will" excuse. I certainly couldn't worship it.

Answer 6

With that argument, why would one give God credit for the good things? It seems to me that you can't have it both ways.

Addendum:
I'd like to add that I most likely have a different idea of God. And I don't blame God, I was just wondering about the logic in that thought process. Not to be controversial, but to get people thinking.

Answer 7

Clearly not every bad thing that happens in life is the result of our free will. Bad things happen to people, like the children born with gross deformities, who have done nothing wrong. It is not such a simple question as you frame it.

Nevertheless, we should know that everything happens for a reason, whether we understand what that reason is or not.

Answer 8

God created evil....

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

How can you argue god is not responsible when your book claims he accepts that responsibility? If he created evil, HE is responsible for ALL the evil that exists.

Answer 9

Well, the fact that since they have learned about god, he is the source of all that is done good in the world. So why couldnt something good have happened, instead of something bad.

Answer 10

I agree. I used to blame god.

Answer 11

How can the creator of the world have nothing to do with what goes on in the world?